A Quorn Meal

Soft pink waist coats and mole grey jackets suggest something refined and gentle. The galah is anything but, especially when when it is jinking up the street with five its mates, showing off clever manoeuvres like teenage boys in their new cars. But they are the only signs and raucous sounds of life for a full eight minutes on this mild sunny day in the middle of the street.  We sit and make small talk and in the long pauses there is only silence. On the stroke of the ninth a plastic clatter of split curtains and a tray appears with our coffee and juice. And some cream dolloped on the caramel slice.
“Here you go boys, you , you and you” as the tray is deftly emptied and the apron swirls back in side with a cheery grin and some lost comment about us doing the dishes for her.
Teaspoons clatter and glasses chink in an otherwise silent street. Half way down the block a four wheel drive towing a caravan pulls in. Some grey nomads make their way to the café (it is the only one in the street) and she barrels in, clearly on a mission. He pauses on the door step and gives us a nod and cheery grin. We nod and smile back before he is called inside.
“Do you know him?”
“Nup. Do you?”
“No. Strange – he was looking at you as if you were a long lost mate.”
Clatter. Clink. Squawk from the teenage galahs in the gum on the far corner.
A swishing click of plastic and he re-emerges. We never learn his name but it is clear he badly wants to talk. We charitably figure he has been locked in his truck for the last couple of days  – on a desert highway.
“Howya doing boys?”
“Good. Yourself?”
“Not bad”. Smiling. You know its thirty years since I have been through here. Came through last time on a motorbike. A Yamaha. Still have it you know.”
(Ah no, but happy to be informed).
He chatted on and on, his cheery face beaming, fingers alternating between being hooked in his belt gesticulating up and down the street or pinning his arm to the verandah post where he leaned for brief moments. He could not stand still.  “Rode through here with a mate. Had a terrific time. Was working up the bush and was heading though to Sydney. From Perth. No tarmac in those days. That bike was a nice ride. Should have taken it to South America.”
That got our attention. Turns out he and his mate, when in their fifties, had pretty much ridden the length and breadth of South America. Small towns and obscure places were known to Frank so there was a flurry of Spanish and Portuguese place names thrown around for five minutes in the tones of pleasant recollection.
She called him back in and he reluctantly obeyed. By now his coffee must have been stone cold. True enough he was back out with her only moments later, cheery grin on his face.
“That was quick.”
“Yeah, you can scull it when its that temperature.” He waves goodbye and drags his feet up the pavement, she in a hurry to go where? We couldn’t guess. He still badly wanted to talk. We waved them out in slow motion. Well, he at least waved as their rig meted into the landscape.
The street went quiet. The sun washed us clean. Graham dragged his trailer up a cross street behind his Toyota truck with a slight clatter and then we were still again. The pink teenagers had a screech and wheeling laugh before flicking off over the railway station and into the outback. Silence.  Golden.